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Sharing Ideas and insights

One of La Trobe’s Vision 2015 goals is to create new and useful knowledge, so we are proud to highlight the wide variety of ideas and insights generated at La Trobe and shared with our community. Some of the platforms we use to share these ideas include:

Ideas and Society

Founded by Professor Robert Manne, Ideas and Society is a series of debates and lectures that aims to bring students, staff and the general public together to consider critical questions. Through Ideas and Society, La Trobe has hosted some of Australia’s leading thinkers and public figures including Paul Keating, Bob Brown, Tim Flannery and Michael Kirby.

Big FAT Ideas

In this series of talks by La Trobe academics, ‘FAT’ stands for ‘Focused, Ambitious and Transformative.’ Each Big FAT Ideas presentation challenges the audience to think differently about issues as diverse as population, terrorism, economics, and psychology.

Upstart magazine

For La Trobe’s journalism students, Upstart magazine provides first-hand experience writing work for a public audience – approximately 13,000 monthly readers at last count. Students are also asked to edit the magazine as part of their course, giving them an insight into working with deadlines, contributors and the flow of online news.

Opinions, videocasts and podcasts

La Trobe’s staff members often contribute opinion articles to national newspapers and other publications, as well as publishing videocasts, podcasts and iTunes U lectures on new research and other developments within the University community. These pieces reflect the enthusiasm of our academic community for engaging with current issues. By March 2012, La Trobe’s iTunes content had been downloaded over 4 million times.